


Fool for Love

by ddagent



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academy Era, April Fools' Day, F/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3662109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddagent/pseuds/ddagent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This April Fools Day, Phil decides the joke won't be on him. But, like always, Melinda has something special up her sleeve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool for Love

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Agents of SHIELD or any of its characters, or settings - all belongs to Marvel and ABC.
> 
> Little gift for themse09 for being a badass and no doubt ace-ing her exam! Hope you enjoy this, my dear, and I hope you all do too!

Phil immediately slammed his hand down on his ringing alarm clock, hoping the noise hadn’t woken his neighbours. It wasn’t quite dawn, the light not quite coming through his window. _Good._ Phil had set his alarm a good two hours early so he could prepare for the day ahead. Despite being awake, Phil didn’t sit up right away. Instead his eyes darted around his room to make sure nothing was amiss. The strings he had placed around his window weren’t broken, nor did there seem to be anything covering the floor or himself.

 

Gingerly sitting up in bed, Phil began to smile. Hopefully, by getting up a couple of hours earlier, Phil had avoided an early morning prank. But he wasn’t out of the woods just yet. This was April fool’s day, Melinda’s National Holiday. There was still twenty hours to go.

 

\--

 

_Phil stirred in his sleep, something tickling his nose. He swatted it away, turning over as he tried to get a little more sleep before he had to get up. After a few frustrating attempts to fall back to sleep, Phil realised it was no good. He had to get up. Groaning, Phil pulled off the sheets and got out of bed. He yawned as he made his way to his door, only realising the hidden danger as he hit the trip wire._

_The first water balloon just missed his foot; the second one hit it directly. Cursing, Phil looked up to see a barrage of water balloons pouring down on top of his head. The water was freezing, soaking through his Captain America pyjamas and plastering his brown hair to his scalp. When the last one fell, Phil could feel neither his fingers nor toes. Shivering, Phil turned back towards his door where a towel was hanging up. He hadn’t noticed the note attached to it earlier, but now he read it._

Happy April 1st! M x

_He was going to kill her._

\--

 

He’d made it to the communal bathrooms with no sign of his best friend, nor any sign that she was even awake. Maybe, as it was their last April 1st before she graduated, Melinda was giving the holiday a break this year. After all, the year before had been a prank to top them all. He could still hear Agent Harding screaming at Melinda. However, there was still plenty of the day left for her to prank. Phil pushed open the door and hoped for the best.

 

A shower was first, and Phil checked the pipes and the shower head to make sure nothing had been inserted, nothing had been switched off or changed. Making sure he was out of the spray, Phil turned it on just to make sure. _Clear, hot running water._ Maybe he’d just got lucky this year. Phil showered in peace, humming along to an old song he’d heard on the radio. Once he was clean from his toes to behind his ears, Phil stepped out and went to brush his teeth. He had bought a brand new brush and a brand new tube of toothpaste just for today.

 

Grinning, Phil started to brush. To his left, one of the doors to the bathroom opened, another cadet passing through and heading for the stalls in the corner. It didn’t take long for the shouting to start.

 

“SHIT! Fucking saran wrap, I fucking _hate_ this day!”

 

Phil paused in his brushing, grateful that he’d peed on a different floor. _Too close._

 

\--

 

 _Rubbing his face, Phil pushed open the door to the men’s bathroom and immediately headed for the shower. He was cold, his window busted from Garrett throwing rocks at his dorm room window. He was sore, his Hand to Hand class having been rough the day before. What Phil really needed before he began another day of classes was a hot, pounding shower. As Phil stepped into the stall and undressed, he realised he could smell something_ sweet. _Sniffing around, he realised it was the shower head._

_“What the hell did she do this time?” Phil ran a trickle of water from the shower, first sniffing and then tasting it. Sugar water. Somehow, his friend had put sugar in the pipes._ So much for that shower.

_Groaning, Phil left the stall behind and went to splash his face with some bottled water. At least he could brush his teeth. Getting his red and blue toothbrush out of his bag, Phil squeezed a line of toothpaste onto the brush and stuck it into his mouth. It didn’t take him too long to realise it wasn’t his usual minty fresh taste. “What the hell did she do to this?”_

_Judging from the cursing of his fellow cadets in the stalls as urine stained their bare feet, it wasn’t just him. He supposed he should be grateful for that._

 

\--

 

“Agent Caldwell? It’s Cadet Coulson. I just wanted to check that we’re on for today’s class in room 6b.”

 

The instructor turned from the assessments he was marking, frowning momentarily before giving Coulson a firm nod. “Yes, Coulson, it’s where it _always_ is. I’ll see you in class.”

 

“Thank you, Agent Caldwell.”

 

Phil gave him another smile before heading out into the corridor and down the hall to check with Agent Breslin that their class was still going to take place in the same room as it always was. He only had thirty minutes before his first class started, but that was more than enough time to confirm his schedule for the day. So far everything was running smoothly. He’d got up without a scare, showered and brushed his teeth like he did normally. Around campus he’d seen no signs of glitter or balloons or insects crawling around lecture rooms.

 

It was almost like it wasn’t April 1st.

 

After talking to Breslin, Phil checked his confirmed schedule one more time before he began his journey to his first class. A couple of freshman cadets were coming his way, both of them giving him a soft smile as he passed. Suddenly, a giant gorilla jumped out behind a row of lockers and started chasing the women down the hall. They wouldn’t last long if a _gorilla_ made them jump. April Fools seemed to weed out the weak cadets; and as top of her class, Melinda was Queen of all Pranks. A title _richly_ deserved

 

\--

 

 _Phil had been attending the Academy for three years but had never been to_ half _the classrooms on the adjusted schedule that had been slid under his door that morning. He would have thought it to be a prank, but every cadet he saw or spoke to was clutching a fresh sheet of paper and desperately trying to find where their classes were. Phil had already missed two, having gone to the wrong end of the campus for Hand to Hand and stuck in a freshman class on Tactical Skills when he should have been in History._

_“Melinda, oh thank god!” Phil cried out as he turned a corner, so incredibly grateful to see his best friend. “Are you looking for Misrepresentation too?”_

_“No, not really…Phil, what are you even doing here? Your schedule says you’re supposed to be in 27a.”_

_His eyes narrowed. “Melinda, there_ is _no 27a and how do you even know what my new schedule looks like?” He paused, taking a closer look at his best friend. There was glitter behind her ear and her eyes were downcast like she was desperately trying_ _to avoid his gaze. Something was up. Something bad. “I shouldn’t be in this corridor, should I?”_

_“Nope. Which is why I suggest we leave_. _”_

_Grabbing his hand, Melinda pulled him through the nearest set of double doors and into one of the empty side corridors. They both peered through the window, the corridor getting thicker with students trying to find their classes. This had been a huge prank; she must have been planning it for months. As the clock struck the hour, Phil realised the other thing that must have taken months. Glitter. Glitter_ everywhere.

_“Melinda…”_

_Beside him, his friend was grinning. “I’ve already started planning next year’s. It’ll make this year look like a breeze.”_

\--

 

He’d survived. He’d made it all day without seeing Melinda, nor getting caught up in one of her pranks. Granted, he was experiencing the dull ache in his chest that seemed to occur whenever he was away from her. But it was worth it to have a peaceful April 1st. It seemed a little strange, though, that most of his fellow cadets had _also_ been having a pleasant day. Sure there had been the classic pranks, but nothing _major._

 

As he slid the key card into his door, Phil wondered if the worst was yet to come.

 

Stepping into his dorm room, Phil threw his bag down onto the floor and turned to his bed. It had been an early start and a nap would do him the world of good. But his bed was occupied. It wasn’t filled with dog meat or balloons; there wasn’t a stuffed dinosaur or a blow up doll. It was Melinda. Melinda in his bed; his blue sheets pulled up underneath her bare shoulders. _There was a naked Melinda May in his bed._

 

“Wow…okay.” Frowning, Phil ripped off his jacket and threw it in the corner. He could barely look at her. He wanted to, _desperately._ Naked Melinda was a constant fantasy of his, a regular indulgence of his daydreams. Yet he wouldn’t give in, not when this was just another one of her _jokes_. “Great prank, Melinda, ha ha ha.”

 

“I’m not doing any pranks today.”

 

Phil’s hand stilled on his bookcase; his blue eyes glancing behind to stare at his partner. She wasn’t smiling, wasn’t grinning. There was no sign of glue or glitter on her or her clothes…not that she was wearing any. Instead she was staring up at him hopefully, her cheeks tinged pink as she watched, _waiting_ for him to say something. This wasn’t another prank. This was…real.

 

“You always do pranks,” Phil said, his voice strained. “Always, every year. This year was supposed to be the big one.”

 

Melinda shrugged, grabbing the sheets and slowly slipping from his bed. The fabric trailed on the floor as his partner bridged the gap between them. Suddenly all that was between him and a naked Melinda May was this conversation and a thin blue sheet.

 

“Everyone’s expecting something big to happen today. I’m waiting for May 1st, that’s when the oxygen tanks arrive.” _What the hell?_ “Today it felt right to do something else. Something real.” Melinda slipped closer, her hands still clutching his sheet. “Okay, the lying in your bed _naked_ thing was for fun. But why I’m here? How I’m feeling? _That’s real._ ”

 

Phil sucked in a breath. He’d been fantasising about this moment for years but had recently started to accept that nothing was ever going to happen between them. Yet here she was, girl of his dreams and his best friend, looking up at him like he was her everything. He recognised the look. It was the same look he’d caught himself giving her.  

 

“You trust me, don’t you Phil? You know I wouldn’t use this as a prank.”

 

Oh he knew. She would prank for fun, prank for a smile, maybe even for revenge. But she would never _hurt_ someone. _This was real._ He couldn’t believe it!

 

“I don’t know…” Phil teased, sliding his hands around Melinda’s waist to pull her flush against him. The sheet became caught up between them, slipping down a couple of inches. Neither of them bothered to adjust it. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…”

 

“ _Kiss me.”_

Beaming, Phil bent his head and pressed his lips to hers. Their first kiss was soft, sweet, leaving them both a little breathless and more than a little desperate. As Melinda left his blue sheet behind and grabbed his hand, leading him towards his bed, Phil decided that this was Melinda’s best ‘prank’ yet.   


End file.
